Instead of doing one vacation post, I'm going to break it down and do a series of them.

One of the days, we drove down to Girdwood and took the tram up to Alyeska Ski Resort.



Skiing was done for the season, but they leave the resort open for tourists to take the tram up the mountain and look at the beautiful scenery.



Unusually for June, there was still a lot of snow - a couple feet, at least. So it was pretty chilly outside. There was also the option of parasailing off the mountain. I was seriously considering it, but Dad purchased the tickets before I'd decided and I hadn't mentioned it beforehand, and I think it would have been too cold for me anyway. I contented myself with watching, though I'll probably regret not doing it.



Still, beautiful:

I don't know when I'll be home long enough to make a vacation post. I'm looking at my calendar, and I'm booked until Sunday!

I did get home in time yesterday to take a nap an run a couple errands before class. I still slept through my alarm this morning - I woke up at 8:53 with an "oh shit". I checked the alarm and it was set for the correct time, a.m., and the radio worked, so I must have been so out that I slept through it. I did wake up with the garbage truck at a quarter after six, but radio obviously wasn't enough.

I went to the City Council meeting this evening, and it looks like the development at the end of the street is going to go through. Our arguments against it were pretty much just opinion - the only argument that actually convinced someone was how large some of the duplexes were going to be compared to the rest of the neighborhood. But we needed two to vote against it, and we only got one. So no more tailgating central. :(

I got a chance to ride through some of the areas where floodwaters had receded. There's silt all over, and the watermarks on the buildings are just mind-boggling. There were disaster recovery companies all over the place, helping clean out businesses, volunteers and employees carrying out water-damaged items. And the smell. When you see flood coverage on TV, you just can't get the full effect because the smell is just awful. My heart is just breaking for the people who have lost so much, and I want to do something besides my monetary contribution to recovery efforts, but I don't know what. I'll have to look into it further.

In other news, it seems all a guy needs to do to get a fabulous job offer in another state is for me to develop an interest in him. I met this guy last month that had just joined my Chamber group, and I was thinking "hey there's some chemistry, he's single and seems like fun, maybe when I get back from vacation I'll look into it" but wait! I get back from vacation, and he's gotten a job offer from a sports marketing company in Texas and is moving Thursday. I'm starting to think I should hire myself out as a headhunter: "Looking for a new and exciting position far away? Look no further! Go out on a date with me and your dream job will find you! 100% success rate!" Sheesh.

Just popping in to whet your appetite for vacation photos. It's been mostly this:



But also a little bit of this:

Here we are! Safe and sound! We had a relatively uneventful flight, except that Dad and I didn't get seats assigned next to each other at all. In the puddle jumper (I was hoping to see some flooding from the air, but it was too cloudy), we were across the aisle from each other, and on the long flight, we were in the same row, but I was in A and he was in E. I slept a lot of the long flight anyway because I had a headache. My rowmates were both originally from Iowa, too. The one guy grew up in Cedar Rapids, but now lives in a cabin near Seward. I don't remember which small town the gal was origianlly from, but she had lived all over and was now visiting Alaska, so we were both giving her ideas on what to see while she was here.

I'm currently having fun trying to adjust to the time change. Instead of waking up at a nice respectable almost-9:00, it's that side of 6:00 in the morning. I did go to bed at 10:00 local time. Sunset was at 11:42 last night, and I don't know about sunrise, but my body is confused about that, too. It's like back when you were a kid and bedtime was at 8:00, but it was summer and still light out. Not fair! Going to bed when there's still daylight.

And Hayden? Looks even more like his dad in person. Nothing like having the real thing in your arms.

Kirkwood cancelled classes today and tomorrow. I've been spending all afternoon rejiggering my syllabus and moving assignments and lectures around to accomodate the missed class and updating my substitute on the changes. I agonized over whether to push the first exam back or not, and I finally decided to do so.

So the good news is, the evening I get back from vacation, I get to administer an exam instead of lecturing, but the bad news is that I will have to grade it. The kids will thank me for the extra time to study, though.

I keep getting spam messages with the subject "what a stupid face you have here amanda". Why in the world would I want to open that email?

I want to go take pictures of the flood, but 1) the police have asked people to stay away and 2) I don't have the time. So I'm posting some pictures from the Press Citizen. (Link is to article - galleries to the right. The June 9th galleries are the best for flood pictures.)

That's my former dorm in the background.


This is the view of Dubuque St. towards the interstate.


Josh (in red vest) volunteered to sandbag, and got his picture in the paper!


Obviously, Dubuque street is closed. It's one of the four major arteries crossing the interstate, and the main route into Iowa City, so there's pretty bad traffic on all the rest. People don't cross the interstate if they don't have to. City Park is pretty much closed, because Park Road is closed. Which means the Shakespeare Festival has relocated.

The river is close to going over the spillway upstream. It's still about 6 feet below where it was in '93, but that was the only time it went over, if I remember correctly. The rain keeps coming, though they were predicting rain all week and now not as much. I cleaned out my gutters Saturday, and that's really been helping with the water around my house. Suprise, suprise, right? I didn't realize how much dirt was in those things. I have gutter guards, but they don't keep out dirt, obviously. It took me four hours to scoop out the muck and I was filthy afterwards. I feel better about leaving it now, though.

There wasn't much coverage of the Coralville area. I'm curious as to how the brand new Marriott is faring. The river was awfully close to the hotel at normal river stage.

This is the last picture Thursday for a while. Next week will be REAL BABY Thursday. Wheee! I get to meet my nephew, see my sister, and oh, yeah, go to Alaska.

Here you can see his dimple. This is a very "Matt" expression:

I do this to myself every year. Summer is supposed to be laid back and lazy, right? But then I go and try filling it up by teaching a class, and I'm stressed for two months. I should have put my foot down and said no. But this year was supposed to be easier than last, since I've taught from this book before and I've got all my lesson plans done.

And maybe it is. Maybe I'm just panicked because I accidentally handed out the wrong syllabus Monday. Or I forgot how tired I get after teaching for four hours. Or that I'm supposed to leave for Alaska in one week and I'm frantically trying to wrap up projects at work and I haven't even started thinking about what in the world I'm going to pack to wear.

I'm just...I'm not content with how I'm going about things, and I don't know how to fix it. I feel like I'm stressed about one thing or another at all times, and I just need a break, and I don't know how to take it. I don't know how to untangle myself or what I need to untangle.